Dan’s Dope: Pink Is The New Green

Alan Scott: the original Green Lantern. For decades, he has fought alongside the JSA, ridding the world of evil. He’s on a first name basis with Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Wildcat and the original Flash. Despite having a vulnerability to wood, he has gone above and beyond the call of duty protecting the universe. Wait, I feel like I’m forgetting something… Oh yeah, HE’S GAY!?!

The phrase “what the fuck” could be heard around the world Friday as DC comics announced that long time character Alan Scott has been in the closet ever since he took his green spandex out of the closet. We can only assume that this is a copycat move on DC’s part since Marvel announced that their character, Northstar, will be marrying his boyfriend in an upcoming issue of Alpha Flight. Before I go any further, I feel that I should stress that I am a gay rights supporter. Period. From healthcare to marriage, I don’t care what the gay populous does so long as it stays the hell out of my established comic books. I’m sure you’re thinking “But Dann, Alan Scott is only gay on Earth 2. It’s not like he’ll be gay in any other part of the multiverse. Furthermore, Northstar’s sexual preference was originally revealed back in the 90’s, so what’s wrong with him getting married?” That all may be true, but the fact still remains that both DC and Marvel are guilty of pandering to the lowest common denominator. When Marvel made Ultimate Colossus gay, they didn’t hold a press conference or put on a parade… they just did it. We didn’t get Colossus sucking face with his boyfriend on the home screen of TMZ’s webpage (side note: it sickens me to my core to reference TMZ in any iteration). Grant it, Alan Scott and Northstar might not be the top heroes of their respective publishers, so maybe they do need a little bit of publicity. I’m certain if they turned a well-known team like the X-Men into the crime fighting squad Rainbow Brigade, fanboys across the globe would storm the Marvel offices; but still, why suddenly change things now? Yes, I’m aware that both DC and Marvel have changed, reshaped, and restarted their universes countless times. But this isn’t so much a crisis as it is a confrontational convergence. Again, I’m a gay supporter, so color me hilarious when I learned from my gay friends that they too were surprised at the amount of attention the culture had been getting lately. Do the people holding the pens & pencils honestly think that this will make for more interesting stories? Maybe the added bleak world outlook might spice up that next major event book?

Hardly

Like usual, all the Big Two wants is more money. However, instead of achieving this by telling great stories coupled with amazing art, DC and Marvel would rather follow MTV’s business model of cranking out pure garbage based on whatever trend the teenagers were following this quarter. They may say that they want more readers but you must remember that this is just code. More readers mean more books being bought. What happened to the days where the diehard ongoing fan was the most valued customer instead of the demographic that’s hot right now? I’ve definitely enjoyed the recent lot of story arcs currently on shelves, so why can’t we just focus all our efforts on keeping those books great while the trends and fads float on past us? Maybe then DC won’t have to scramble to replace their cancelled books with other less appealing books. I’m not saying gay people shouldn’t enjoy comics either. All I’m asking is do they really need to identify with a fictional character in order to pick up a book? Personally, I’m waiting for DC to mimic Marvel’s recent creation ‘Blue Ear: The Hearing Impaired Super Hero’. This idea came about after a desperate mother emailed Marvel explaining that her four year old wouldn’t wear his hearing aid because, and I’m quoting here, “super heroes don’t wear them.” Marvel claims they have no plans to give this bastardized parenting solution an on-going series, but trust, when the chips are down odds are they’ll revisit this idea long before they even think to bring back Uncle Ben. And yes, you know damn well ‘Uncle Ben: Reborn’ would be an epic story if given the proper TLC by the right people!

–DD

PS: My predictions for the coming year’s worth of books go like this… Jean Grey returns from the dead only to elope to Vermont with Emma Frost; The Black Lanterns return claiming they are the true 99%; The Incredible Hulk finally admits he has deep physiological issues involving his mother; Damian steps down as Robin, making way for a new Robin with manageable Down syndrome; Johnny Storm takes on the mantle of MonoMetro, the world’s first colorblind openly metrosexual super hero